The police cars blaring by, the sound of loud music coming from the apartment above me, and the sweet smell of donuts from the nearby café; this is the beginning of my day, and in this case, my story.
I am Ajax, but you can call me A.J. Today is April 13, and this is just an ordinary day, at least, to me it is. It started just like any other, my junky alarm clock waking me and the whole entire building up with me. I hit the snooze button to no prevail, as my clock fell off of my bedside milk carton. If you haven't figured it out by now, I am not very wealthy. I say me and not my family because I live by myself here, in this cheap apartment. I am an only child, and my parents...well, I don't know my parents. I never have. They are gone, and honestly, I am doing just fine on my own. I bought this apartment with my own money that I received form Child Support, and I don't use much money because I can walk everywhere I need to. Anyway, let's get back to my average morning.
After I threw it on the ground a few times, my crappy alarm clock finally shut up. Now wide awake, I walked across the carpeted floor to my closet. I blindly thrusted my hand into my clothing rack and pulled out a random outfit of two shirts. "Dang it," I exclaimed, "That is the second time this week!" I dug around a little more until I finally pulled out a pair of pants that kind of matched my shirt. Too lazy to try again, I let out a disappointed "Humph" and walked to the kitchen. My stomach was angrily growling for a decent breakfast of toast and eggs, but yet again, my laziness overpowered me and I poured myself a bowl of generic brand cereal. As I shoveled the squares of wheat into my mouth, I thought about my life and what I might become. Just kidding, I'm not that mature, I am only 14. I thought about the café below me and how I would much rather be eating those delicious donuts than this soggy cereal. Their tantalizing aroma wafted through my open window and drifted around, tickling my nose and my mind with their mouth-watering scent.
To get my mind off of the donuts, I closed the open window that was letting in the smell. After I finished my bland cereal, I headed to the bathroom. I looked into my cracked mirror and saw a majorly distorted image of myself. Even via the fractured screen, it was easy to tell that my hair was a complete disaster. I fished my comb out of my cluttered drawers, and with it tamed the beast called my hair. While I was brushing my teeth, I began predicting how this day would go. I forecasted a normal day, but in reality, this day would turn out anything but. You see, this day would go down in history. For this day is the day that The Cloudburst began.
I walked out of my apartment, ready for the day to begin, and headed to work. My job is simple: hang flyers in stores and on posts. I work for an ad company, but they don't trust me with any real work because I am so young. Since I don't have a car, I began my two mile long trek to the headquarters of ADventures, my employers. It felt just like a normal day, with blue skies and the sun out shining. The sun seemed especially bright, and I paused for a moment to soak up its delightful UV rays. Soon, however, the sun became more and more a bother, as it was making this trip hot and sweaty.
I was grateful that there were not many other people out on the streets with me. Come to think of it, the streets were really bare today; almost no one was out and about.
"That is really unusual, especially for a big city like this one." I thought to myself. "People should be all over, considering the time of day it is. I know I'm not the only one who walks to work and school in the mornings." I shrugged it off as a holiday or an anniversary of something. I kept on walking, but now a little less confidently.
Right when I was about to reach my workplace, I got extremely nervous. I was strolling into the center of the city, where most of the stores are. The doors were locked, the lights were off, and there was no one to be found in any of the stores I passed. I was absolutely positive that there was no gigantic major holiday that would allow all of these stores to close this unexpectedly. I became very worried and stressed. "Did something happen? Did someone important die? I wouldn't know, because I don't have a TV set. They cost too much money for something I would only use for an hour a week.
I was too far to turn back to my apartment; I was within a block of my destination. I reached the headquarters, drenched in sweat. My racing mind had distracted me from the sweltering heat.
"Maybe there was an extreme heat warning for today and no one wanted to risk getting heatstroke." I tried to reassure myself. "Now that I stop and think about it, it is really freaking hot! It's like the sun moved a couple miles closer to Earth, and our planet just sat there and took it."
Since I was given the keys to the building, I pushed the key in the lock and turned. I heard the click of the unlocked door and swung it open. Then, I reached to pull out the key, and it snapped.
"Shoot! My boss is going to kill me! There is only one key left, and it belongs to him!" After these initial thoughts raced through my head, I stopped to wonder why the key had broken. I had a flashback to 8th grade science class, when I learned that something moving from extreme cold to extreme heat would weaken, or even break. It sure didn't feel like extreme cold out here to me, but then I touched the lock.
"Gaaaahhhhh!!!" I screamed out loud without a thought, as the metal lock felt hotter than a sauna on steroids, multiplied by a million, and placed in the fiery pits of Hell for an eternity and a half.
"That is definitely hot enough to snap that key into a billion pieces." I was in utter shock as to how hot that lock was. The skin on my finger was already starting to blister and peel.
To get relief from the still-increasing heat, I stepped inside ADventures. To my surprise, the air conditioning was off, meaning that I was the first one here. Without the air conditioning to cool me, it was as hot if not hotter than it was outside. Since I was the only one here, I decided it would be fine if I took off my tie and my outer layer jacket I wear to work.
This provided some relief from the heat, but it still was sweltering inside and outside. I rushed over to the air conditioning unit and flipped the switch that turns it on. I thought that after this turned on, I would be alright, and figure out a plan from there. To my sadness, that would not be the case, as the air coming from the vent was hot.
This made the room temperature much hotter, and it was starting to feel like a desert in here. Of course, I quickly turned the air off, but it didn't seem to do much. It was still very hot, and I was sweating more and more.
The sweating in turn made me thirsty, and that is when I realized the biggest problem I was facing: thirst. All the water in the office from the cooler, the sinks, and even the toilet was steaming hot and undrinkable. I had to find another way to get water soon, or else I was in big trouble.
After thinking about this issue and its possible solutions for a solid minute, I became even thirstier and realized the only solution was for me to go back to my apartment, and ask someone in my complex if I could come inside.
I headed outside confident and collected, but that all went down the drain in less than a second. As I opened the door, a wave of heat the size of Mt. Everest slammed into my face like a train going downhill with a broken brake. I was not ready for that heat, to say the least.
My mind stopped, the heat had overpowered it. My life flashed before my eyes. As I fell into a nearby puddle, my field of vision went black.
I woke up on a couch, in someone's living room. For a second I thought my experience was a dream, and I had a really bad dream. That was proven wrong when a mysterious girl came to the side of the couch and said, "Oh. You woke up. I found you out on the streets on my way to the library. You fainted due to heatstroke, and it looked pretty severe. I'm Delilah, by the way. Not that you asked. Anyway, my dad should be home from work soon, so..."
"Where am I?" I interrupted. "You are in my apartment, across from ADventures. You were out on the street 20 feet away from the front door of my complex. I dragged you inside my apartment, barely outlasting the heat. Oh and by the way, WHAT WERE YOU DOING OUT THERE!!!!"
"What do you mean?"
"You know, the small problem of concentrated beams of UV radiation getting blasted down from the sky."
"I didn't hear anything about that"
"Are you kidding me, it was on every one of the news stations, and all of the non-news ones too. Do you live under a rock, or are you just dumb?"
"I don't have a television."
"Do you have a radio?"
"No."
"Then how do you expect to know about things that happen in the world, like a deadly atmosphere rupture?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Okay, you really are clueless. So, some American-hating scientists were working on a new bioweapon, one that could spread across whole oceans and is deadly to humans. They tried it out on rats, and it killed them, so they released it at us across the ocean. They told all of their citizens to go inside, but some didn't, and were fine. The toxin did not kill humans. It is useless towards us. It is not completely useless, however, as it did a great job of annihilating the ozone layer. The wind helped carry it around to randomly arranged hotspots created by an abundance of the chemical. These hotspots intensified and left giant holes in the ozone layer. All of the sunlight that would have been slowed and stopped is now free to go at full force, blasting the people and the landscape with in essence, randomly placed giant lasers. The news is calling it the Cloudburst, and everyone is really scared and unknowing of what might occur. Now do you understand?"
"Yes, I think I do."
"Good, now let us think of a plan of action."
My main concern was getting cold water, but when I suggested that idea, it was quickly shot down.
"No! What is the problem with warm water? You like soup and coffee warm, right? We should find a source of cold air, or else we might pass out from heatstroke. If we do, no one will be there to rescue us and we will probably die." She protested.
After giving in to her request that was actually an order, we proceeded to go from apartment to apartment, asking if they had anything cold. Most of the times that we knocked on doors, the same thing happened: We would hear footsteps; see an eye peering through the eyehole, followed by more steps, and the door never actually opening.
However, one time, and old woman opened her door, let us in, and served us cookies. We noticed that she did not have a television. Delilah asked her if she knew anything about the sun or the ozone layer that happened recently. She responded with a no, and then offered us more cookies. I turned down her offer, and then left her quaint apartment with many thanks. In the end, we never told her that the Cloudburst had happened; we decided that she was doing fine, and we didn't want to worry her.
She was an old-fashioned kind of woman, and because of that, she didn't have much of an air conditioner, and the small vent that she had was shooting out hot air. After Delilah's plan failed, we headed back to her apartment.
On our way back up the stairs, we suddenly started to shake. I yelled, "Earthquake!!!", and dropped to the ground. After a few seconds, Delilah did the same.
Things on shelves started to fall, and the floor looked very unstable. We couldn't go outside, because of the heat, but we couldn't stay inside, because we would be crushed by the falling building. Before I could think of a solution, Delilah stood up and started sprinting away from the exit. I figured that she knew more about this apartment complex than me, and I followed her into what seemed to be a closet.
Once the door slammed behind us, Delilah started climbing up a ladder onto what I assumed was the roof. I followed her once again, but this time slower, as the trembling had intensified, and I couldn't hold on to the rungs very tightly.
By the time we reached the roof, the building was more or less in a heap on the ground, just a pile of bricks. I looked out at the city line below me, and to my surprise, saw many other buildings like ours, just in a pile of building materials on the ground.
Surprisingly, the buildings weren't the most alarming things in my field of view. The ground looked much scarier. The asphalt roads were slowly melting, along with the concrete sidewalks. The little amount of grass and trees were all on fire. The scenery looked like it was hit by a giant laser. Well, actually, it was hit by a giant laser.
After my brain got past the initial shock of all of this, it stopped for a moment to care about the heat. Immediately after I noticed the heat, I wished I didn't. It had to be at least 200 degrees Fahrenheit, although I wouldn't know, because I have never felt that hot before.
I saw Delilah stand up and jump over the edge of the building. On her way down, she grew wings and started flying away. I stood in shock, and then shook my head to make sure this was reality.
When I started seeing straight again, Delilah was standing there normally. She could tell by my surprised face that I had a hallucination. She told me to lie on the floor, as heat rises and it would be cooler towards the ground.
Immediately, it did not make much of a difference, but after a while, I felt my body temperature slowly lowering. I waited until my head was clearer and less melty, and then stood up again.
The surrounding landscape started to look less like a city and more like a wasteland, with no one outside, and all of the buildings collapsed or collapsing. I think at this point, my brain still hadn't fully registered what had happened.
I was thinking differently, like it was all a dream that I would wake up from shortly. However, the heat and everything else disagreed with me. My world was melting in front of me, and all I had left was this girl, who I just met a few minutes ago.
¨
After we both refocused and took in the world, we slowly descended the pile of rubble we were standing on. Sadly, no one was there with us. From what we could tell, we were the only survivors. This disaster had already claimed over 100 lives, if everyone in the complex we had come from had died. This disaster had claimed hundreds of lives, and it had only been in effect for a few hours.
Now that we knew we weren't getting any new accomplices on our journey, we sat down and came up with a plan.
"Now what?" I asked Delilah.
"I don't know." She responded, "Although my dad works an early shift and is supposed to be home in a few minutes. I want to wait for him, although I don't think he will leave his work, considering the Cloudburst and all."
"I say we leave. If we stay here for much longer, we might pass out. Besides, if we are in a hotspot, we will definitely find someplace colder." I responded.
"Fine."
She gave in to my request, and we set off on our journey. It happened to be about 8 in the morning, so it wasn't as hot as it was going to be today. Delilah said that we should wait until at least 10 P.M., so it wouldn't be so hot. I thought that we would never make it that long without food, water, or shelter.
She demanded and argued for a while until I finally gave in and used her idea.
Now that we had a plan, all we had to do was execute it. Unfortunately, this was easier said than done. We found ourselves a large gap between the big blocks of rubble left of her apartment. After she finished lecturing me about how her idea was so much better than mine, and how this will turn out perfectly, she promptly fell asleep.
I was alone in this wasteland of a world, with no one to talk to or interact with. After a while, I too closed my eyes and slowly travelled to the welcoming region of deep and silent sleep.
I woke up what felt like an eternity later, to the sound of earth turning over and rocks sliding and melting. I had never known this sound before, and never would I have imagined hearing it.
The rocks on the bottom of the pile were slowly melting, taking the higher rocks lower and lower, until gravity caught up with them and they fell. For my whole life, I had never been a light sleeper. This day changed that. The sound was quiet but disturbing, like a whistling wind in the middle of a summer day.
I sprung up from my sleeping rock, and jumped off of the pile. My first reflex was to run away screaming, but then I realized that Delilah was still sleeping. My morals were killing me, I had to save her, but I might die trying.
I figured that she is the only reason I'm still alive, so I dove at the rocks to try and save her life. I scooped her up in my arms, and sprang away with all of my strength. My arm scraped against one of the rocks on my way out, and I came out bleeding.
I landed on my back very ungracefully, and slid across the half-melted concrete, with Delilah safely in my arms. She was much lighter than I had thought. In the moment, it was like she weighed nothing at all. She leaped out of my arms immediately, and ran away very startled.
After she stopped running, she walked back to me and asked what happened. I told her what happened, and then started to feel hotter and hotter. There was nothing I could do about the surroundings fading in front of me, and I fell into a world of darkness for the second time today. This time however, was different. Instead of waking up later, my mind started to fog.
Swirls and stars crowded my field of view, and I didn't want it to stop.
"This world is much better than where I came from." I thought to myself.
My perfect world was interrupted with Delilah's stern voice.
"Get up, get up, get up!!!"
I rocketed up from my laid down state, and snapped myself out of my vision. Just a look at her let me know exactly what she was feeling. I needed to keep myself together for the rest of the day, or else she would lose it.
"We can't stay here. We need to leave. We need to find out if we are in a hotspot, or if we are in the cold area." I said.
"But my dad..." She said nervously, "He will be home soon."
"There is no other option." I responded solemnly.
She didn't respond, and I knew why.
Then we left, on our journey out of here. Delilah stood up, shook herself off, and started to talk.
"We should go down Central Street; that is the fastest way out of the city."
I agreed, and we set off.
I was absolutely drenched in sweat at this point, and needed water immediately. We stopped at a closed down gas station, pried open the melting door, and snagged a case of generic brand water, which was way too hot to drink.
Even though no one in their right mind would drink this water, I chugged the whole bottle involuntarily, and my throat started to burn when I finished it. While we were there, I figured it wouldn't hurt to grab a backpack to fill with water bottles and other survival supplies.
After we finished stockpiling, I put Delilah in charge of carrying our supplies, as I had already passed out twice. She reluctantly agreed, and now we were finally ready to leave this place.
We casually strolled out of the building, and headed down Central Street to our way out of here. I never had really fully appreciated the size of this city until now, when I was walking down it. On our way there, we saw a group of rioters. They were breaking windows and doors, to get free merchandise from the shops. It was clear that they were overexerting themselves, and I saw a few of them on the ground to prove it.
As we drew closer and closer, it was clear that these people were using brute force and violence. The people on the ground were bleeding and bruised, not from heatstroke, but from attacks.
We tried to pass them peacefully, but they noticed us. One of them, who looked like he was in charge, shouted at as from a great distance.
"Hey you guys! Who are you?"
Delilah and I tried to ignore them, but they yelled back a second later.
"I'm talking to you! Who are you? You better answer me this time, or you are gonna get pounded!"
"We are normal citizens, from down the block." I yelled back.
"All I know is that you aren't on my team, so I'm gonna pound you. There ain't no police to stop me, so everything is legal."
I stopped walking, grabbed Delilah's hand, and pulled her with me as I started to walk backwards. The raiders were too far away to notice what direction I was moving, and just saw my legs moving. As we were doing this, someone snuck behind the assumed leader and stabbed him in the back with a knife from the department store they were breaking into.
He crumbled to the ground, and the new leader didn't seem to care much about us. Feeling thankful for the coincidence, Delilah and I walked off in the opposite direction. We turned left at the closest intersection, and resumed our trip to vacate the city.
Keep in mind that all of this is happening in hundreds of degrees weather. The only thing keeping us going is the constant supply of water bottles. In fact, we had to stop at another store on our trip, and refill our supply of water.
After a long journey of empty road and broken buildings, we made it to the end of the road...literally. The bridge leading out of the city was raised, meaning that it was up, and impossible to cross by walking over it. Considering that the water was boiling, and we couldn't swim in it, our trip ended.
This was terrible news, as now there was no way out of the city. Delilah immediately walked up the bridge as far as she could, about halfway, and started to cry. She sat there for a minute, engulfed in tears, as the truth hit her in the face like a speeding bullet: there was no way out.
We were trapped here, in this wasteland. Doomed to die in a matter of hours, as the ozone layer deteriorated further, causing the Sun to intensify even more.
There were only two things to do: sit tight and slowly die, or try to do something about it. Of course, we chose door number two. When Delilah and I both calmed down, and refocused, we came up with a plan.
We realized that there was only one thing we could do; try to go out of the city the only other way possible, the airport. See, we live in a very large city, large enough to have its own airport. Our plan was to fly one of the planes out of the city, and...
Well, we didn't exactly know what to do after that. Neither of us knew how to fly a plane, much less land one. I figured that Delilah might know how to operate one, considering how much she knew about everything else, but I wasn't sure.
Unfortunately for us, the airport was in the heart of town, which meant two things: one, we would have to walk all the way to the middle of the city; and two, if we were in a hotspot, it would be hotter there than where we are now. However, it was our best and only plan, so we had to take the risks.
As we turned around to start walking to the airport, a figure became noticeable in the distance. It was a man, running towards us. I asked him what he was doing, but as he drew closer, he refused to answer my inquiry.
Before I had the chance to ask again, he picked up his speed, and passed us. We watched in terror as he ran up the raised bridge.
Not slowing down, he made it as far up as he could, and then jumped. He soared through the heated air for a few feet, and then fell. It was clear that he was not going to make the jump, and while I mulled it over in my head, I realized he didn't plan to clear it.
He was looking for a way out of this place, and didn't find one. He realized that he was going to die and just sped up the process by a few hours.
My head was racing with thoughts, "Will that be us in a couple of hours? Was he right to jump off of the bridge? Did he act normally? Are we the weird ones?"
Normally, I would have assumed that he was out of his mind crazy, but this isn't normal. This isn't logical. This is the Cloudburst.
¨
After pausing and grieving for a second or two, Delilah spoke up.
"Oh my god. That was terrible. But we have to be on our way. We don't want to be sitting next to him later."
I was amazed how she had just shrugged this off. A man just died, and we could have saved him. I vowed to never forget this moment for as long as I live, which possibly, could be not that much longer.
At this point, Delilah was already walking, so I reluctantly followed. Her voice briefly got my mind off of the sinister topic it was currently on.
"If we keep going, we will be able to get there by sunset."
I trudged along, a half-empty water bottle hanging out of my mouth. After I finished chugging that one, I realized that we were out of water. Somehow, we had drunk a whole backpack's worth in about an hour.
It was necessary to have water in these conditions, so we had to look for a convenience store. We saw one a few blocks ahead, but it was soooooooooooooo far away. Suddenly, it appeared again, but this time, right in front of me.
I ran towards it, but it kept getting farther and farther away. Delilah looked at me very strange as I ran towards the water haven. She calmly stepped in front of me, looking very worried.
She told me that I was seeing a mirage and that it was not really there. The store would have kept on moving backwards until it was back where I saw it at from the beginning.
I reluctantly admitted that she was correct, and shook myself back into reality. Together we walked up to the convenience store, opened the door, and got some sweet, sweet water.
Both of us filled up a backpack this time, so we were weighed down much more by the weight of the many, many water bottles.
We headed out of the store, and into the burning wasteland in front of us. Then, we headed down the street towards the airport. Our trip there was very hot, and very dangerous.
As we rounded the first corner, we heard something sizzling. I turned around to see the concrete behind us getting struck by a giant laser of sorts, with the grass besides it in complete ashes.
Delilah looked up and saw the sun blasting down as a laser, and then grabbed her eyes desperately.
"Aaaaahhhhhhhh!" Delilah exclaimed whilst in pain.
By looking at her facial expression, I could tell that she had looked at the sun and burned her eyes. She collapsed on the ground in pain, and stayed down. I provided her with water bottles to help soothe the pain, but it was clearly in vain, because she didn't quiet down.
After lying on the ground for quite some time, she got up and opened her eyes. She had a small black dot near her pupil on both of them. She said that she could not see out of it, and that she had gotten badly burned.
I tried to console her as she picked herself up off of the ground, but it did not accomplish anything. She still could not see, and that would surely doom our journey from here on.
We absolutely could not give up, so she would have to lean on my shoulder the rest of the way to the airport. I directed her where to walk with small nudges and pushes. It was not very hard, because it felt like she was super light, and definitely not resisting in any way.
After that, my mind was thinking things like, "It can't get any worse than this. We must be close. We are in the home stretch." Boy was I wrong about that.
¨
As we continued to walk down the street leading to the airport, I became very worried. Unlike before, where you could hear rioting and breaking things, now it was silent. I never understood the "It's quiet, too quiet" thing until now. Even in this hour of devastation, no one was talking; no one was making a sound.
We continued again to walk down the barren road devoid of all people and life. Delilah occasionally asked for a water bottle, but other than that, it was silent. As we walked further and further down the road, tensions rose up to the point that I had to say something.
"Is your eye feeling better?" I asked.
"No." She replied bitterly.
I felt like she somehow blamed me for all that was happening. I couldn't explain how or why she would think that, but who knows? Maybe she thought that I dragged her into this, and now she was getting miserable and injured.
Before I could fully examine and edit the thought in my mind, one of the "sun lasers" exploded out of the atmosphere and landed right in front of us. It was so bright, we could clearly tell where the laser started and stopped.
We both jumped back at the same time and exchanged loud screams. If we had been 10 feet ahead, we would have been burnt to a crisp. After this incident, we walked slower and with more observation and watching.
After this and a few more sudden outbursts of sun (None as close as the first), we finally made it to the airport. My worst possible fear now was that all the planes were melted, or that we died as soon as we crashed landed.
I am not sure about Delilah, but when I walked into the main terminal, I was expecting a blast of cold air and a helpful person there to direct me to my plane. As soon as I walked in, my mind got confused and sad. The realization finally hit me; we were the survivors.
You know when you see something terrible in the newspaper or on the news, and you acknowledge it somewhat like it's a dream, something terrible and giant, and it could never ever happen to you? That is what my mind was thinking previously.
That all of this is just a dream, and I would wake up in a few minutes in a cold sweat, and be relieved that it was all just in my head. Now, seeing a deserted airport, a usually crowded and stressful place, completely empty and devoid of life, made me realize that this is real.
And because it is real, it needs a real solution. As I thought about it, I realized that this plane idea was insanely farfetched and will probably fail for a number of reasons.
First off, I don't know how to fly a plane, and I doubt that Delilah knows either. The second thing is that the planes have probably melted. If concrete can melt at this temperature, metal would have to as well.
Speaking of the first reason, I decided to ask Delilah if she knew how to fly a plane.
"Umm... Delilah?"
"Yeah?"
"A little late, but do you know how to fly a plane?"
"I have watched enough television shows to have a vague idea. I'm sure I can figure it out."
With that discomforting answer burned into my mind, I became far, far less confident that we would leave here alive. The only thing that was stopping me from turning back and sprinting out of the terminal was the image of the man and the bridge flashing through my tainted memories.
I took a step back for a second or two to analyze the situation and realized how crazy it was. Two people walking through an empty airport, no one else around. The two people aren't talking to each other, and neither know how to operate the machine they were going to use to escape certain death.
We finally made it to the back of the airport, to the glass pane where we could see the airplanes. It took me a while to fully comprehend what I saw.
Nine melted pieces of scrap metal, and one fully functional airplane. One of the planes was in the shade, and not effected too badly by the Cloudburst. I smashed the glass in my excitement, and climbed down the fire escape ladder.
In my excitement and possibly in part to the slightly melty and slippery ladder, I slipped on the fifth rung from the top. My head fell first, followed by my feet. As I landed on the concrete ground, I felt a smashing pain in my upper head.
¨
I guess my mind was used to blacking out and got stronger because of that, because I did not see black when I landed. The only thing I saw, possibly even worse than black, was blood, seeping out of my head.
I couldn't concentrate on anything while Delilah scrambled down the ladder to try and heal me. She pointed out some leaves on the ground, and I used those to try and stop the bleeding, kind of like bandages. It worked to some extent, but did nothing to stop the pain.
As I lied there on the ground in searing pain, I heard Delilah say to me,
"Stay with me please. I don't know what I would do if I survived and you did not. I need you to go on; I need your help and compassion."
I realized that some effort needed to be made in order to stay alive. That I needed to try very hard to survive and keep going on.
I concentrated on my breathing first, to stabilize that. Then I focused on slowing my heartrate by calming down. After the vitals were fixed, I tried to stand up again. I pushed up my body weight with my arms and slowly moved my feet under the load.
As I straightened my legs to finish the stand, they became very wobbly and I was unsure if I could actually stand all the way up. Through perseverance and strength, I managed to do it.
I finally stood at my full height...and then immediately sat down on the nearest bench. It took all of my strength to stand back up again once Delilah came back from checking out the plane, where she was at the time.
However, I managed to do it, and even started to walk towards her. She saw me standing and walking and exclaimed with joy.
"Yes!!!!!!!!!! I knew that you could do it!"
I picked up my pace and walked all the way to the plane by myself. On any other day, that wouldn't be much of an accomplishment, but today it was phenomenal.
As I stood at the base of the plane, I realized that we had a problem on our hands, it was impossible to actually board the plane. The walkway you normally use to board was retracted, meaning that the door was closed and there was no way on.
This gigantic obstacle would have stopped most people, but not me. I had to leave this city, and there was only one way. My motivation was survival, and I was determined to survive, and if that meant getting on that plane, you better believe I was getting on that freaking plane.
We both climbed back up the ladder to the terminal, where people normally board their planes. However, when we made it to the top, there was no clear entry point. The walkway was closed, the gate wasn't open, and the plane doors weren't even open.
There was no clear way on, but I was determined to find one. We figured that there had to be some way to extend the walkway, but nothing became obvious.
The podium that the boarder would stand behind was unoccupied, so we walked over to check it out. There was a lever behind her desk that looked like it did something, so we figured it was probably the walkway lever.
"It must be the right lever." I told Delilah.
"It probably is not. There are so many things that that lever could do like..." She tried to respond.
"Fine, it might not be, but it might. We have hope, and I would appreciate it if you didn't ruin it for us by being so negative. There is a chance this will help us, and I am going to take that chance."
I slowly stepped fully behind the podium and flipped the switch. Nothing happened at first, but then I heard the grinding of gears and mechanical parts as the walkway slowly extended.
"Yessss!!!!! I knew it!! We are saved!"
However, the rushing problem of the closed plane doors washed over me like a depressing blanket. I knew that we had to open it, but I didn't know how.
We walked on the walkway all the way to the closed plane doors, and saw some sort of lock requiring a large, round key.
Of course, we did not have that key, but we did have an idea of where it was. Well, more specifically, Delilah had an idea about where it was.
"The key is probably with the worker; he or she brings the key home every night, and brings it to work in the morning. Of course, there is probably more than one worker, with more than one key."
To myself, I thought that there had to be somewhere that they were storing extra keys. What if they lost one and needed to make another new one?
While I was thinking this, Delilah said that there are normally extras in the maintenance room. Neither of us knew where that was, so we started to look.
Delilah said that it would be faster and more efficient to split up, but I denied the request vigorously.
"What if one of us gets lost? What if one of us gets hurt? We would not be near each other to help out, so we could ultimately fail."
After a long debate, she finally caved in and we went together down the long, winding hallways of the terminal. We passed many doors, but after a solid hour of searching, we found one that read maintenance.
We threw open the knob and basically sprinted inside. There was a key ring on the wall with many keys on it. I grabbed the ring and started to run back to where the only plane was.
Once we made it there, I ran down the walkway and started the long, monotonous process of trying all of the many keys in the one lock. I still hadn't found the right one when Delilah finally showed up, walking and calm.
I had almost tried every single key when finally one of them slid into the lock. I twisted the key with my sweaty hand, and it clicked beautifully into place.
We both grasped the handle and swung the door open. As I stepped onto the carpeted plane, it brought back childhood memories of flying by myself across the country with my extra money.
It looked as though Delilah was skipping into the plane, happy as a lark. She smiled as she walked up to the pilot's seat, and sat down.
She looked very confident, so I asked her why.
"Delilah, are you sure you can fly this plane? You look very confident, why is that?"
"My dad is a pilot, and taught me a lot. He even took me out to fly once." She responded
"Wow!!! How come you did not tell me earlier? That would have saved me so much stress."
"The other thing my dad taught me was that hope is a powerful thing. It can save a nation, or give one a sense of dignity and pride when they have none. I would hate to give you hope, and then have that crushed in less than a second if something happened to me."
While my jaw was still dropped in awe, Delilah flipped some switches and looked proudly outside the window shield.
She recoiled in terror and pain, and my heart dropped. I ran over to see her, and what I saw was terrifying.
She was holding her hand over her chest, for a good reason. Her hand was pitch black with ashes. In her excitement, she failed to realize that there was a sunbeam where the steering contraption was located. It both heated the steering wheel and the air around it, and her hand was burned in two different places.
It was clear that she could not pilot in these circumstances, so she said painfully that I had to do it.
When I was 10, I wanted to become a pilot. I went to the library every day, and checked out so many books. I was pretty sure that I might be able to get this plane off of the ground, but I was not sure at all.
Delilah tried to help me and tell me what to do, but she was only telling me things that I already knew. However, if she knows how to pilot and is only telling me things that I know, maybe I will be able to do this after all.
I did what Delilah was telling me and what I already knew, and the plane started to move. In my excitement, I flipped the switch that pulls up the wheels on the bottom of the plane too early.
With a terrible sound of grinding metal, the plane came to a stop on the ground, completely away from the walkway and where the plane was supposed to be.
¨
Now we had a terrible decision to make: either stay on the plane for the coolness better than outside, or try to jump out of the plane.
Considering that that was our last way out of the city, there was really no point of leaving or staying. Either way, we had to commit to something.
We figured that we would like both of our last moments to be off of this failed escape attempt of a plane. Sadly, we slid down the plane's side kind of like a slide.
We slowly trudged out of the airport and began aimlessly walking around town. Some maintenance stores crossed our path, and we looted them again, not for water, but for money and cool stuff.
I planned to head back to the rubble that was my apartment, and lie there for the rest of my life. However, right when Delilah and I were about to part ways, I caught a glimpse of the bridge leading out of town.
My heart raced as I noticed that the top of the bridge had melted, and had mostly closed the gap between the two bridge parts. I turned to tell Delilah the good news, but she was already running towards the bridge.
Without alerting my brain, my feet started to move. They were running towards the bridge with Delilah. As they picked up speed, I realized what was going to happen. We were going to escape.
Somehow, someway, we survived. All that we had to do now was jump over the 3 foot bridge gap and run out of this hotspot to safety.
As I was nearing the bridge, my legs slowed down. They stopped. I was trying to ignore it, but there was now denying it. I was thirsty.
My brain was begging everything to keep moving, but everything was telling my brain that they couldn't. I was all dried up like a fish out of water.
There was a convenience store a few blocks down, but when we passed it, I didn't bother grabbing water because I knew that I would be dead soon anyway.
I realized that Delilah still had some water. I tried to yell out to her but my vocal chords were too dry.
I began to accept my fate, when Delilah suddenly turned around. She saw me, and threw me a water bottle. I blacked out for a few seconds, but I awoke to a crumble of rocks and a water bottle by my side. My hand felt cool, like it had already held it before. I brushed it off as a side effect, and started begging my arm to move and grab the bottle.
It took a crazy ton of willpower, but I did it. It hurt everything in my body, but I did it. It was against all odds, but I did it.
The bottle was open and in my hand as I poured it over my face. Most of it went into my mouth, but the stuff that didn't felt amazing as it rolled down my face. I was lying there for a few moments before the water finally kicked in. Before it did, I thought that it might never work, and that I would be dead soon.
After my body rejuvenated, I got up and started walking towards the bridge this time. I saw Delilah hesitantly standing at the edge of the bridge, not jumping for her life.
She still had not moved by the time I reached her. I became worried that there was something preventing her from doing it, but when I reached her, I found that it was something else entirely.
I walked up the bridge to see her, but she was in tears at the top.
"Delilah, why are you crying?" I asked gently.
"My d-dad. I-It's my d-dad." She replied in between sobs, "He is in the n-next town over. He t-told me that h-he would be home early, and n-not to worry about him. I k-know that he is coming, and I c-cannot leave w-without him. You go. I am going to stay here, and there is nothing you can do about it."
I waited in silence for a few seconds, and tried to argue with her.
"If you stay here, you will die. You need to come with me. I am sure that your dad will understand. Besides, he can't even get into this town."
Delilah stood there in silence for a few moments, and then jumped the bridge. I followed shortly, and it was over. Or so we thought.
¨
When I landed from the jump, I rolled down the bridge like a hill. It was fun. I was expecting cool weather and water all over, but outside of the city, it felt like we were still inside.
It was still hot, I was still thirsty, and I was still sweating. I became very disappointed, and figured that there had to be a way out of this unbearable heat.
Without Delilah following me, I began to run. I ran in a straight line for as long as my body would allow.
It might have been placebo, but I swear that it felt much cooler. After I could go no farther, I collapsed on the ground. Delilah suddenly appeared next to me and started to lecture me.
"What were you thinking?! You exhausted yourself out, and now you might be in serious trouble!"
I responded with a weak, "I don't know."
Suddenly I noticed a little puddle next to me and I stuck my finger in it. To my gigantic surprise, it was not super hot. I even was able to drink some of it.
Now I knew that this was for real. We have slowly escaped the hotspot, and survived the Cloudburst.
I kept on walking and talking to Delilah.
"We survived!" I exclaimed.
"I know!" She responded.
As I continued walking, Delilah talked less and less and moved slower and slower.
In my field of view, I noticed a lake. I heard voices and saw other people. In my excitement, I sprinted towards it.
Delilah followed slowly behind me. I wasn't sure why she was acting so weird, and I didn't like it. I did not want to ask her though, it might be rude.
As I drew closer to the oasis, I turned and could not see Delilah. Before I was close enough to fully see the oasis in all of its glory, I remembered something.
I had a flashback to second grade when we were learning about the desert. My teacher's voice resounded in my head.
"Now class...the heat in the desert can cause all sorts of problems. For example, there are things called mirages. They are visions that seem real but can distort all of your senses into a happier place. These mirages can be very dangerous and give people false hopes and dreams. Scientists don't even know the full capabilities of these, but they think that the hotter it is, the more powerful it could be."
When I was 7, I did not fully understand this, but now I do. My heart plummeted when I realized that this oasis might be a mirage. I knew that if something is a mirage, you won't be able to touch it.
My heart rose back again when the oasis got closer. I realized that it was not a mirage, and began to run again. When I finally made it to the real oasis, I saw lots of friendly faces.
They congratulated me on my escape, and I realized that they were fairly nice people. I would have been perfectly fine with just staying there, hiding out from the harmful UV rays of the Cloudburst.
However, when I turned to check on Delilah again, she had disappeared. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach, and I was pretty sure that I knew what had happened. Delilah was a mirage.
She first came to me when I passed out from the heat, and never told me anything that I already did not know. I had really become attached to her, and I was devastated by her disappearance.
The people around me were assuring me of what I already knew to be true: Delilah was gone. She never was real, and my brain had lied to me.
Now that the heat had subsided, my brain could think clearer and easier. It decided to end Delilah, for she had become useless and unnecessary.
I was not going to get over her easily, but in the end, it was going to happen. I would live my life here with these people. Or so I thought.
¨
I relaxed and let my body sink into the refreshing water. It felt weird however, like I was only getting wet on my butt and nowhere else. This confused me to say the least, but I managed to brush it off as a butt hallucination.
I then decided to close my eyes and get a good night's sleep for the first time in a long time. For the first time in my life, I was completely relaxed.
My eyes opened a few hours later, and nothing had changed. Everyone was still gathered, so I tried to introduce myself.
"Hello! I am Ajax. Nice to meet you." I said.
"Hello Ajax! I am Firefly! This is Jake, and this is Rob." She pointed to two men near her, "It is so nice to meet you! Before you, I was the only kid here. It is nice to have another child nearby."
Before I could answer, I felt a strange sensation on the top of my head. It felt almost like raindrops. My mouth tried to open to respond to her nice comments, but when I opened, she was gone.
I was lying on my back facing the sky, and the first thing that I noticed was the rain. It was coming down hard. The second thing that I noticed was the heat. It was super hot, just like I was back in the hotspot again.
The rain did a good job of masking the heat, so I was able to sit up and look around. I was on the pavement outside of ADventures. I was at the same spot that Delilah had saved me from earlier.
My brain was racing, and then I realized that Delilah was an illusion of the mind. As the rain stopped, I realized that nothing had happened since I passed out for the first time.
Once the rain stopped, the heat came back and hotter than ever. I finally noticed the insane thirst in the back of my throat as I surrendered myself to the elements; never to be remembered again.
After all, I was just another victim of the Cloudburst.